November 4th is National Unity Day and Armed Forces Day, instituted by the fascist regime in the 1920s to celebrate the "victory" in the First World War. What victory for the 650,000 dead and the 1,000,000 mutilated and injured? It was good business for the big industrialists, for corrupt politicians, for unscrupulous state officials, high-ranking officers with their hands in the till. War profiteers made such scandalous profits that a parliamentary commission of enquiry was set up.
Every year, in every city, the civil, military, and religious authorities unite to provide legitimacy for armies and wars and to draw the veil of rhetoric over the reality of “a useless slaughter”.
Every year, in every city, the civil, military, and religious authorities unite to provide legitimacy for armies and wars and to draw the veil of rhetoric over the reality of “a useless slaughter”.
We want to reaffirm our NO to that and to all useless slaughters that continue to stain the world with blood.
"Don't believe in the soldiers' acts of valour, don't be taken in by the other fabrications in the newspapers. They are lies. They don't fight with pride, no, nor with ardour. They go to the slaughter because they are led to it and because they fear the firing squad. (B.N. 25 year old soldier; condemned to 4 years in prison for writing a denigratory letter 1916) |
“Italy repudiates war” states our constitution, but repudiating war means not only not making war, but also not building, selling, or buying instruments of war: neither bases or armaments. The production and the trade in arms, the construction and maintenance of military base - all of this is a problem we need to solve, as citizens who are not resigned to the choice of war, who take on the responsibility of building the fair society, based on peace and solidarity, prefigured by the constitution.
We think that the use of violence and the culture of armaments are the most absurd, the stupidest, the cruelest activity that man ever undertook during the course of history.
To confront the ever more serious problems of our times, we don't need more bases, more soldiers, more armaments. We need co-responsibility, civil solidarity, far from the logic of militarism and power.
We don't want to be complicit in militarism, wherever it shows itself, and particularly not in our own country with its concession of the Dal Molin airport for the construction of another US military base, the growing militarisation of the Campania region(the port of Naples, the military bases, the armaments factories, the militarised rubbish disposal areas...), the storage depot of nuclear weapons at Aviano, the continual growth in military spending, the building of the F35 fighter-bombers, the participation in military operations, disguised as peace-keeping missions...
The militarisation of or country doesn't provide us with security, it takes away our security and freedom. To feel secure we need respect and the recognition of our freedom, dignity and self-determination.
For this reason, on November 7th we will be on the streets of Vicenza to declare our opposition to the construction of the new Dal Molin base.
We invite all women who refuse the logic of war to join us.
We invite all women who refuse the logic of war to join us.
Donne in Nero
Padova 4 november 2009
